Jacknife Lee looks back at R.E.M. session

Posted: Sunday, October 25, 2009

By Julie Phillips

Be careful. You could lose a good couple of hours on Jacknife Lee's Web site (www.jacknifelee.com) - trying to find meaning, perhaps; that or listening to his numerous and evocative remixes of songs both obscure and familiar; watching his fantastically produced videos; and scrolling through screen after screen of eye-candy visuals.

R.E.M. always has sought such artistry in its collaborators, and Irish-born Lee (née Garret Lee), who started out in his own punk band in the early '90s before seeking other creative ventures (among them working with U2, Snow Patrol and Weezer, to name a few), seems a perfect fit for the band these days.

Lee co-produced (with R.E.M.) 2008's "Accelerate," which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's 200 and was hailed by fans and critics alike for its rocking, live quality.

On Tuesday, Lee's second effort with R.E.M. hits the streets, a whopping 39-song release titled "Live at the Olympia," recorded in 2007 during the band's five-night "working rehearsals" at the historic Dublin theater. (A CD release/listening party will be held Monday at the Rialto Room at Hotel Indigo, organized by Jeff Montgomery and benefiting Community Connection of Northeast Georgia and Family Connection/Communities in Schools of Athens.)

The songs on "Live at the Olympia" were performed before an audience of fans (mostly fan club members from around the world) and stretch back nearly three decades into R.E.M.'s catalog.

"It's an amazing document of a band at their peak," says Lee, speaking from his home in Los Angeles last week. Asked about that - that a band turning 30 next year is at its peak now - he assures. "When you hear stuff this stripped down and it still sounds this great ..." he says, trailing off with the thought. It finds him here:

"There's something unquestionably great when you get those three people in a room together. ... I was amazed at how good their playing was. There were some songs they probably hadn't played in 25 years. ... And I think some of the versions on there are even better than the original studio recordings."

"They connect so well," he adds of Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe. "And they have an immense respect for each other. It's a great thing to see."

Lee's own introduction to R.E.M. came like that of countless other impressionable young teens across the globe in the early 1980s.

"I was young at the time, and my sister's boyfriend was obsessed with R.E.M., so 'Murmur' was always leaking out of the sitting room through the stereo." To that end, his sister's boyfriend started a band heavily influenced by R.E.M.'s sound. Lee stepped it up a notch, the R.E.M.-connection - albeit years later.

"I feel really fortunate to be working with them," he says, adding the Dublin shows were special, allowing him to re-visit the Olympia, a theater he'd grown up seeing bands in - and maybe even played himself (he can't remember for sure). The Olympia's red-velvety interior has two balconies and holds about 1,300 people, making for an intimate show compared with the arenas R.E.M. generally plays, he says.

The working rehearsals contained on the album came after the band already had spent about three weeks with Lee in Vancouver doing early recordings for "Accelerate." (The decision to do the rehearsals in Dublin was made, as best Lee can remember, over a meal at Five and Ten in Athens.)

The songs that ended up on "Live at the Olympia" were gleaned from the more than 100 played over the course of the five nights, he says, and the effort proved more time-consuming than he'd figured.

"I thought I could (finish) about six in a day, but it ended up taking a lot longer," he says, noting part of the process was finding the best version of each song - that and his attention to detail.

And whatever the case, the chemistry is working. Lee's already been in the studio in Portland, Ore., with the band to start work on the next album, which, he says, will have a similar "live"-in-the-studio process like "Accelerate."

Of that album, he says it wasn't, as some critics suggested, a matter of the band reaching back to the edginess of its youth.

"It was five people in a room playing - not looking back, that wasn't the intent. It was counting to four and playing a song. And in that, there's a fierceness. ... They're a great band."